Groups who participate in weekly food distributions in Piatt Park pushed back on a plan leasing the park to 3CDC during Cincinnati City Council's public comment session Wednesday.
The lease proposal became public when 3CDC presented it to the Cincinnati Park Board on April 17. But food distribution events in the park had been the topic of conversation between public officials and 3CDC for months prior, emails reveal.
The Parks Board gave its approval to the lease, which 3CDC says it needs to apply for state funding to remake the park. Part of that presentation was a slide with a photo of a food distribution captioned "persistent misuse of the park," which sparked social media posts and a petition asking the city to pause the lease to 3CDC.
"We can frame Piatt Park as blighted and challenged, or we can frame it with a more realistic lens," Anna Sullivan told Council. "I use the park a lot, and I always feel welcome ... if we begin to mischaracterize how people use the park as 'misuse' if they don't look like me while they're doing it, it's no longer 'public.' "
Mayor Aftab Pureval told attendees at Wednesday's Council meeting the city supports efforts to help people struggling to find food. He said the lease proposal does not mean big changes are imminent or that food distributions will have to cease.
"What this application does not mean is that we are going to sell off a valued public space or take away the public use of it or interrupt any social services that are happening for vulnerable communities that are happening there," Pureval said during public comment. "That's not going to happen on the city's watch."
But Pureval also defended the partnership with 3CDC.
"This conversation is stemming from an effort to put an application together to get state funding for the park," he said.
In a statement, 3CDC said it does not plan immediate changes to the way the park currently works.
"This lease is a first step in the redevelopment process; in the interim, nothing is changing at Piatt Park," the statement says. "The City of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Parks remain in full control of the park. Any future improvements or expansion of the park will require their approval and would include community input and engagement."
An ongoing discussion
Emails between a member of the Downtown Residents Council, 3CDC, city and parks staff obtained by WVXU dating back to last October outline broader concerns about the park, including drug use and harassment. But they also focus on the food distributions specifically, highlighting concerns about trash and pests and exploring potential permitting measures as well as other approaches to the groups.
One Oct. 2025 email sent by Downtown Residents Council Board member Kevin Donovan to 3CDC's David Vissman, and later forwarded to city staff, expressed concerns about the views of groups feeding people in the park. Donovan stressed in the email he was speaking on his own behalf, not on behalf of the residents council. DRC has not taken an official stance on the food distributions, though members and other residents Downtown have expressed more general concerns about safety in the area.
"I looked into the organizations that provide meals on Saturdays in Piatt Park and they all seem to have pretty radical views," Donovan wrote.
"The park should be a beautified pocket park for visitors to the city to enjoy, not a gathering place for the homeless," he said later in the email. "It seems like these meals are an unnecessary service given the calendar of meals being provided daily by organizations dedicated to feeding the poor in Cincinnati."
3CDC requested a meeting about Piatt Park concerns, including claims of littering, in February this year, emails show.
"We would like to convene a group consisting of CPD, Parks, Piatt Park Stakeholders, and members of the Downtown Residents Council (DRC) to discuss concerns at Piatt Park," a Feb. 18 email from 3CDC's Senior Manager of Public Engagement Alex Martin to city and parks staff reads.
"Please bring information about the groups that are feeding individuals in the park every weekend, specifically the permitting process and trash procedures." Martin writes later in the email.
Permitting debate
The park has long been the center of debates about public space. A 2012 settlement between the city and protesters involved in local iterations of the 2011 Occupy movement established a year-long period in which the park was open to the public 24 hours a day. Occupy protesters had filed a federal lawsuit claiming the city had violated their free speech and assembly rights by arresting and fining roughly 300 people for demonstrating at the park. Among the activities demonstrators took part in were food distributions.
Those have continued in various forms over the years, led by an evolving cast of groups like Cincinnati Food Not Bombs, Coalition for Community Safety, Cincinnati Practical Education Coalition, Triiibe Foundation and other mutual aid organizations.
Groups who provide food at the park held a pop-up distribution Wednesday just before the city's public comment session. Angel Rodda was among those who came to get soup and bottled water. She said she's a regular at the weekly events, and that it helps both people without housing and others like her who have a place to live.
"I love seeing my homeless friends be able to come and eat," she said. "And I love to be able to come and grab things myself."
Discussions in other emails sent between city and park staff in March explore the potential of requiring permits for food service in the park, though the verdict appears to be mixed on that.
"If it's hot/prepared food, they probably need a food service license," Assistant City Solicitor Mark Manning wrote in a March 12 email about permitting questions. "But regardless of whether it's prepackaged or not, there’s probably a conversation to be had that if they want to engage in providing services, they also need to be cognizant of the community and clean up afterwards. And set some parameters for their do-gooderness."
"I had a conversation with an individual several years ago in OTR who was getting excess food and providing it to street folks," Manning continued in the email. "Luckily we didn’t need to take enforcement action because we ended up talking directly to his supplier and cut him off."
WVXU reached out to the city to get more details about that previous food distribution situation and to ascertain whether requiring permits for food serves is still a possibility at Piatt.
Cincinnati Parks reversed itself in 2018 on a previous attempt to require permits for a monthly "Potluck 4 the People" food distribution event put on by the Triiibe Foundation.
Other city staff encourage a less hands-on approach from the city in the emails, mostly amounting to a reminder to food distribution groups to clean up after events.
"I'm not familiar with the groups who are distributing food but am wondering if it's worth a conversation with them about ensuring communication with Parks when they are coming to the space and that they are cleaning up afterwards," Cincinnati Violence Reduction Manager Kait Bell wrote March 25 before reaching out to one of the groups. "It seems a little intense to me to go straight to telling them they can't come back."
Emails show a meeting between some of the groups and city and parks staff was proposed, but the meeting does not seem to have occurred.
Organizations who conduct the food distributions have defended their use of the park and say they don't leave litter.
"In discussing with the other orgs that we collaborate with, the resounding note I took is that we all take pride in leaving the park better than we found it and are dedicated to cleaning and caring for these public spaces as we meet neighbors in the community," Coalition for Community Safety Executive Director Noam Barnard wrote to Bell in response to an invitation to meet. "We usually document with photos to ensure our commitments, and would be happy to provide for communal accountability to concerned parties moving forward if you're comfortable sharing more details about the source/inspiration for the outreach."
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